Becoming a Buddhist monk | Of Beliefs & Faiths - video Dailymotion

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Shi You Wei chose an unconventional path, renouncing his life to join the monastic order. He reflects on his journey, the demands of monastic life, and the ways monasteries adapt to the modern world.  Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video

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00:00For the younger Buddhists, sometimes scripture is scripture, modern living is modern living.

00:08They find it very hard to reconcile the two. Buddhism is a bit more sedated. It's like wine,

00:14it becomes purer with age and experience. I was from like a not-Buddhist family. We were like,

00:24you know, normal Chinese Taoist family, and then we went to our bye-bye. We have an altar at home,

00:30and our parents would offer their joysticks. So this is the kind of like family we grew up in.

00:37When I was in primary school, one of our uncles had an accident, and my dad was really worried,

00:45so he would be offering joysticks to the deity hourly to ask that the uncle might live through

00:51this incident. So unfortunately, he did not, and I think after a few years,

00:59grandfather passed away. After that, then I think the family kind of got a bit of religious.

01:05The point where I started was in secondary school. In our generation, we have something called religious

01:11knowledge, RK. It was an O-level subject, so we chose, I chose, I chose Buddhism, the easiest,

01:18something I'm most familiar with. It was just small theory. The teachers teaching then,

01:24I suspect they should be Buddhists, but they were just going through the materials as well.

01:28After that, I kind of like signed up for a class. I don't know how, I don't know why,

01:35but I just kind of like signed up for a class at the Buddhist lodge. That was when I was just like 15,

01:4216, 16. They had a weekend Saturday class, so prime time for us to go out. But then I went for the class.

01:50The class was in Mandarin, and it was by a China monastic as well. So the accent and the way things

01:58were taught, so like, wow, chim, just one word, chim. So we just tried hard not to fall asleep.

02:04And the classmates were like all more senior people, like 40s, 50s, 60s, very old people.

02:10There I was a kid in the class, just trying to learn as much as possible. There was this,

02:16this whole, you know, there's this void that I was trying to fill, that, you know, is this the real

02:22Buddhism, which is, you know, the real Buddhism rather than the school Buddhism, kind of thing.

02:28So I signed up for it to know more.

02:34I finished O level, went for A levels, and then army. So weekends we can book out, so we can go home.

02:45Sometimes I went, I go to the temple and help out. I wasn't the fittest guy in the platoon and things

02:52like that. There are instances where I find it very difficult to catch up with army training.

02:57Somehow the faith kept me going. I still remember the imagery would be, you know,

03:02like Buddha was just around and, you know, just cheering us on.

03:15My family wasn't well to do. I was like the first one to go to a local college.

03:21I think it was year two, so we had a chance to go for exchange program.

03:26And then me wanting to, you know, go experience life a bit differently. So I signed up for one.

03:34I didn't expect to be picked.

03:35Family was quite happy, but family was a bit stressed because I had to go to the States.

03:40So the exchange rate was what, one to 1.7 kind of thing. The local students would host us for games.

03:48Again, a lot of partying, a lot of clubbing, a lot of food.

03:54I was there for the fall semester. So then there was Halloween, there was Thanksgiving.

04:00Lots of partying. That generation was where the mumbo jumbo thing was going on.

04:05That was also the first time, you know, I came real close to people who are on drugs,

04:11people who sleep around. It sets me thinking, is this really what we want to do?

04:17Finances was one thing. So I couldn't afford to go for too many party sessions.

04:22After finishing assignments, then I would, you know, go read up. And that was where I think

04:29online streaming just started as well. So there were a lot of online videos on

04:35dharma discourses, dharma talks. So I just paid more attention to that and start watching

04:41and knowing more and thinking about life a bit more.

04:43During the early part of uni, I had a lot of internships with press. I was with

04:57Zao Bao, Wan Bao, Xing Ming, all the tablets for a while. As interns as well, they sent us out for

05:05a lot of outside assignments. I also remember very vividly that we were sent for more

05:13military duty every every week. That's also the time where I see a lot of all these accidents,

05:21people dying, theft. After I graduated, I went to a nursing home. I was doing volunteer management,

05:36events management. It was also an excuse, a ruse for me to get my family to get used to the fact that

05:42I wanted to renounce my life. So they had to get used to the half-working, half-philanthropical,

05:49giving up my life kind of lifestyle. It was not conventional. Nobody in my generation became a

05:57monastic. I mean, Chinese family, elder son, been to college. At my generation, going through college,

06:05it's kind of like a big thing. So they were not so willing to let it go. They chose not to talk about

06:11it. They're like, I'm going to brush it under the carpet. My mom was okay because she knows friends

06:17from temple. She has been to temple, so she knows the lifestyle. My dad, not so, not so receptive. He

06:24thinks it's a very harsh kind of lifestyle to go through. He was not really happy about it at all.

06:30He would prefer his son to just go work, get rich, and do something else. When did they really change?

06:37It was after a long while, actually, after I came back from Taiwan. They saw my lifestyle,

06:47and then that's where their views changed, actually.

06:52It was really tough. I was thrown into college immediately after Taunje. So there was no time for

06:58me to get used to the lifestyle. It was really regimental. It was like a BMT all over again.

07:06It was in Taiwan, so the culture is a bit different. Even though I was quite effectively bilingual,

07:11but then the college means everything is in Mandarin. So, wow, lifestyle is very difficult to adapt to.

07:20Language was a bit of a challenge. Cultural kind of thing, how people deal with each other is very

07:26different from what we have in Singapore. So I find it really difficult. And then I was homesick a

07:33little bit. So at that point, in the beginning, I was thinking, oh, wow, should I come back? Should I not

07:38come back? And something, yeah.

07:43Buddhism talks about impermanence, talks about pain, suffering. If we haven't been through that,

07:49it's very difficult to appreciate pain and suffering and impermanence. So sometimes it requires a bit of

07:54age and it requires a bit of life experience. The current youth, the suffering is very different

08:01from the parents' generation. It's more on mental stress, but it's because of this that makes Buddhism

08:08more relevant. Buddhism talks about mental state, how we control our mind, our desire. Buddhism should be

08:16very relevant to the youth of today.

08:23When I first started doing social media, hmm, it was, again, uncharted territory. Everybody was

08:29looking at us, as like the guinea pig kind of thing. If we get flamed, everybody would just

08:35huge, shrink back, kind of thing. I was also apprehensive. I don't know what to do. But then,

08:40I think the environment was a bit more merciful, a bit more forgiving. It was easier to adopt,

08:47I think, at my time. I wouldn't say I'm the pioneer, but then things picked up after I appeared in a few

08:54media. I think everybody starts to look at this a bit differently. It's definitely a way to let people

09:02understand more about the faith. People are not reading books, not reading papers, definitely not

09:09reading scriptures. I think it's the way to go, but how we do is uncharted territory, and the kind of

09:18algorithms that work in TikTok might not work in our favor. It's quite more light-hearted, funny, a lot of

09:26music, dance, and kind of things. For monastic to do that kind of thing, it's not really appropriate.

09:35If we do TikTok video, I hope people give us some leeway or some lags to explore if this

09:42is something where we should do. So this also brings back the point that within the monastic,

09:48we need to draw our own boundary. What can be done, what cannot be done. This has been long overdue.

09:55Our rules are still 2,000 years, you know, 2,000 year old rules. In today's living, I think a lot of

10:03things need to be re-adapted to modern living. In Buddhism, like I said before, impermanence is one

10:09thing. So everything should evolve with age.

10:25Depends on the world.

10:28Depends on time.

10:29Depends on time.

10:31Depends on time.

10:33ど-

Becoming a Buddhist monk | Of Beliefs & Faiths

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